Come Sing a Deeper Song

Our Work As Light Leaders

March 11, 2023 By Cara Lumen

Our Work As Light Leaders

Living Our Deeper Song

Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!

We are Light Leaders so how do we do the work? What is our role? How far reaching is our impact? How do we expand our reach?

I’m thinking out loud here because I have nothing to guide me but my inner wisdom, my curiosity and my deep desire to be in service to help raise the vibration our planet and its inhabitants.

At the core, our job is to be willing to change our choices and actions to serve the highest good for all. To change thoughtfully. To change creatively – always keeping the greater good for all as our goal. It is an inclusive awareness that we need to keep cultivating.

Where would you like to participate? Where would you like to create change? Would you like to work with a certain group of people to help them through a portion of their life? A lot of expanded and inclusive awareness and heart changing needs to go on in our world when it comes to interacting with each other. We have to cultivate and expand and establish a greater sense of inclusion in our world so that our awareness becomes more about our similarity and is a source of expansion and enrichment.

I am currently being offered an awareness expansion by people who have come from the continent of Africa. How did they end up in the midwest of the United States? It is a mystery to me but there are a lot of people who have come directly from the continent of Africa in service here in my long-term care facility as health professionals on the staff. One staff member recently spelled her name for me and it was truly an unusual combination of letters that created her name. She had come here in her 20’s. I personally am going to get out the map of Africa and begin to understand those countries and cultures. If you look around you for someone who has a different background from you, you have just found a new teacher.

Find your most effective and impactful place of service as you walk through your life. Perhaps at the end of your day, look back to review your interactions. What nourished you? How did your interactions affect the people you came in contact with? What could you have done differently? What would you do differently next time?

Do you see yourself as a light leader and how do you walk in the world?

DEEPER SONG AFFIRMATION

I am aware of my role as a light leader and continue to define and refine it every day.

DEEPER SONG PROCESS

Identify an area of your life in which you see yourself as a light leader. How do you live? Who do you serve? What would you change? What could you improve?
Identify other light leaders in your life and see how they are doing the work.

===INNER WORK===

Deepen Your Inner Awareness

Cultivate Inner Peace

Pausing to take a mindful, deep centering breath can immediately bring you into an experience of inner peace. It can be done anytime, anywhere, in any situation. We just have to remember to do it.

I want to add more mindful moments to my day to stop the intensity of my work. I could pause and look out the window at the on-going change in nature, take a few deep breaths, quiet my mind and center myself before returning to work.

Pausing for a centering breath is important if you find yourself getting agitated or stressed or emotional. In seconds you can return to inner stillness and take time to center yourself and calm your mind before you re-engage.

Trust Your Inner Guidance

My inner voice is always helpful. When the inner voice in my head offers me guidance in the form of ideas and suggestions and insights, they are always on target and usually take me in a very interesting new direction. I learn to not only listen to my inner voice but to trust what it tells me. Sometimes it’s only an awareness that something new is coming in. And sometimes it’s the full-blown idea.

Whenever your inner voice communicates with you, trust it and consider the guidance it offers.

What Do You Want To Plant This Season?

It’s nearly planting season. What do you want to grow this year? Do you want to grow more of what you did last year or do you want to plant something new?

I have a lot of new crops started since I moved to Evergreen. Someone said the other day, “I always learn something new when I come into your room.” I like that because I’ve done a lot of exploring in my life and have a great deal to share. Seed planting holistic concepts is one of my roles.

I have a great deal of physical work to do to get my body healed and repaired and back in shape and I’m not even sure what new roles that will open up for me. Walking outside to make friends with a master gardener who manages our garden is certainly on the list.

It is not my role in the world to try to change the disastrous authoritarian direction Republicans are trying to take the US other than to work with that trend energetically. Maybe something I say or explain or do will put someone on a different, more inclusive path.

What do you want to plant this upcoming season that will open new doors and expand your reach and what do you need to sow for your continued well-being.

The Spring Equinox is Mon, Mar 20, 2023 4:24 PM. What will you plant?

===SELF-HEALING===

Take Responsibility for Healing Yourself

We Must Take Responsibility For Self-Healing

I am being treated for edema by doctors and nurses and I realized I was not necessarily doing my part as a believer in self-healing. I’ve got to work on myself. I researched and cut back on any new food that I had introduced lately and actually began to drink more of my Garden of Life Protein Meal in almond milk to see if that would cleanse my kidneys. But the most empowering thing I discovered was a Qigong sequence that I can practice many times during the day. It’s called Pull Up The Energy of the Earth and I love the concept. You simply bend over and gather energy from the earth and bring it back to your kidneys which are opposite your belly button and a little to each side. It was very empowering to take steps to help my own body self-heal.

When you have a physical problem expand your search to include whatever forms of holistic medicine call to you. Take responsibility for helping to heal yourself. You can do it.

Honor Your Inner Calling

My need to garden and bring more plants into my life is a challenge in the small space I now live in. But I did it and had a lovely hour and a half figuring out my gardening system and repotting the two plants that were suffering from having been shipped by UPS. My garden adventure took place on a tray table filled with potting soil and small pots right here beside my desk. I savored each moment. I have gardened all my life and even managed to have petunias in my apartment window in the middle of New York City’s Upper West side.

What need is calling to you lately and how will you find a way to honor it? Do that.

Self-Responsibility

I’m listening to my body and trying to do a better job of helping it heal. The hip surgery was fine, but my body has edema, it is holding water that makes my legs swell. That was happening even before I moved. It is my responsibility to change the choices that are still causing that to happen. I’m going to take self- responsibility for my body’s response and I have some work to do.

I need to check out my belief systems about what is possible, to identify what beliefs and expectations are holding what physical manifestations in place. Those can be a bit tricky to find. Look at what you see as the physical changes you want to make and get to work to create the changes you want.

I just spent the whole week on the Shift Network Qigong Summit and learned some new ways to direct Chi energy with my mind. The ward doctor who looked at my swollen legs used the image of valves that need to close better in order to push the blood up and out of my legs. I use my imagination to visualize valves in my legs snapping shut with enthusiasm, closing the way they should to help move the blood up from my legs.

In my Tai Chi practice I have added more visualization beneath the moves, particularly around the softness of an inward feminine move and in the strength of an outward masculine move. It is making a lovely and profound difference in my experience. By encouraging internal images, I am changing the flow of my practice. By taking my time and practicing with conscious visualization and intention I am deepening my experience. What kind of self-discipline will you add to your life and in what area?

Are you persistent in whatever form of exercise you have chosen? Do you set goals and objectives for yourself that help you increase the impact? Are all areas of your life rewarding? Don’t overdo it, but try to find facets of your life that call to you to be strengthened and start there. It may not be about how many more times you do a specific move, it may be about the accuracy and consciousness and deliberation with which you do it. It may be as simple as eliminating one food choice that contains more salt than you should be eating. It may be finding a different time of day for an aspect of your spiritual practice. Begin with any area of your life and choose one or two elements to examine and modify. Do that one and then turn and choose another one to experiment with.

What Is Causing Your Pain?

What is the emotion or choice that is causing you pain? I was looking for a reason behind some physical pain I am experiencing and I realized that I should actually be figuring out the cause of it and release that habit or emotion or belief from my life.

On the physical plain I’m looking for the cause of the edema I have and I am examining what I need to do. I’m putting myself on a very monitored diet to see if that will helps. I can looking for more effective food choices to make and specific things to stop eating.

We can apply that search for the cause to an emotional situation we have identified to something that is rubbing us the wrong way. What in particular is causing you worry or anxiety? What is causing you anger? Look in all areas of your life to identify the cause of your discomfort.

First you have to realize that something is out of balance. Then you begin looking for the cause. And then you make the changes that will bring you back into balance.

Without doing a treatise on my process, I looked at what has been added recently (Sprite twice a day). I looked at what I had not been doing as much of recently (walking), and I looked at my emotional state (rather happy).

When you are out of balance, begin to eliminate things until you find the cause and can restore the balance. For instance, if the cause is stress you need to find ways to meditate or pause for deep, calming, releasing breaths to center yourself during your day or find whatever helps you change the experience into less stress. Look at what you have added or left out recently that might have caused the imbalance.

Don’t live with pain. Figure out what causes it and change that.

When you find yourself out of balance in any part of your life, pause to see if you can identify the cause, if you can tell when it started and perhaps even determine the cause. Then get to work and get it back in balance.

===OUTER WORK===

Explore New Potential and Possibilities

Expand How You See Yourself

I have not thought of myself as a spiritual leader but one of my friends called me that recently and I had to stop and think what I thought about it and what I think it is.

I know I am a rock – capable of standing alone – capable of supporting others.

I know my calling is very strong and I know that I eagerly listen to my inner voice – and follow it. And I know that I am compelled to share with others what I figure out. So I am in a leader role which feels very organic to me.

If in fact I have another 12 or so years to go, I get to redefine my role in this next stage. Part of it is about motivating and inspiring the younger healers on the staff here just as they are motivating and inspiring me.

I feel like a river. I am sending out constant ripples that will touch other shores and have an impact. I don’t send them to specific shores, but I do put them out and trust the universe to deliver them to the right shores. I’m just a rock doing her pebble thing in the water of life…

Are You Still Going In The Direction Of Your Choosing?

With the world changing so rapidly and new opportunities constantly opening up, this might be a good time to see if you are still going in the direction of your choice.

My life seems to have unfolded in 13-year cycles so if, in fact, I have just begun a new cycle with this move, even at 90 I get to figure out what I want to do for the number of years.

Look back over your life and noticed the time line pattern and see where you are in the cycles of your life. Build on that.

===DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE===

Self-Healing Spiritual Practice and Deepening Awareness of Our Cosmic Oneness

Thank Your Friends

Today, take time to think and acknowledge a friend for being the loving, kind, supportive friend that they are. Hopefully you have more than one person to thank. Don’t just thank them, tell them why they are important in your life and how they support you and how their very existence enhances your life.

Who will you acknowledge? And what will you say to them?

===DEEPER SONG DISCOVERIES===

Insights and Resources to Explore

What Makes You Happy?

I don’t laugh out loud very much but I wish I did. What makes you stop and smile? What lifts your spirits? What makes you happy?

It’s possible we have to practice being happy by beginning to notice the small grins that come across our face at something we hear or see or experience.

My heart was warmed recently by a Zoom call I had with a friend because of some of the things she said about me. She saw me in a role that I’m not aware of and I’m not really sure others are aware of and she elevated my view of what I do. That conversation warmed my heart.

Maybe you feel happy when you are in nature with the wind in your face or the smell of growing things in the air. Maybe just being with your pet or your friend. Or a partner.

Are you aware of the role you play in other people’s lives? I’m not, but it would be nice to be able to recognize how one contributes to others.

Notice the little things that make you happy and gather more of those around you. Then look at the big things that make you happy and go get more of those in your life.

===HOW TO BE A STRONG CONTRIBUTING MEMBER OF THE CIRCLE OF LIGHT BEARERS===

Expand Your Role in the Rapidly Evolving Universe

Surround Yourself With People Who Nourish Your Soul

Life is too short to spend any time with the wrong people. Look at your life and who nurtures you and who does not and stop being around those who do not.

I have quit jobs in order to go pursue what called to me more deeply. I have moved cross country when I knew I was complete with a place that I had been living in.

Friends wander in and out of your life. They serve a specific purpose, sometimes with one exchange, but that impact is never forgotten.

I’m not a believer in long-term intimate relationships because I think we change too much within our lives and that being partnered closely will hinder us from expressing our true potential. I was married twice 40 years ago but I love the feeling of being able to follow my heart in whatever direction it calls to me ever since.

How good are you at surrounding yourself with people who nourish your soul?

===OUR EVOLVING FUTURE===

Support and Encouragement for our Unfolding Role in the Future

Coming Full Circle

Years ago in New York City in the 80’s, someone asked me what my power animal was. I barely knew what a power animal was but the word “giraffe” popped into my head. I like the idea of having an overview of the world and my head in the clouds for ideas. About 10 years later someone pointed out the giraffe has no voice. That sure didn’t work for me because I was pretty vocal on many levels.

Over time I have collected several statues of giraffes. They seem to have come with me to Evergreen.

Giraffes (andI) can see the big picture and clearly understand the situation. The giraffe spirit animal is also a symbol of awareness. I like that part a lot.

Unexpectedly the two giraffe statues that I have are now moved into more prominent places. It seems I have come full circle and I’m ready to work with a giraffe spirit guide again.

Be flexible in the unfolding of your spiritual awareness and let it surprise you every once in a while.

===REFLECTIONS OF A DEEPER SONG PODCAST===

Expanding Awareness

Journey to the Sacred Feminine

Listen to my
Reflections of a Deeper Song Podcast on
Apple / Spotify / Googleand the
Deeper Song Website

==== DEEPER SONG EXPLORATION ===

The Michelle Obama Podcast is now on Audible. It’s called The Light Way.

===CARA’S CORNER===

A Gift

I was recently given the gift of a new friend. It was a deep recognition on my part and probably on hers.

According to Michael Newton’s books, when he hypnotized people and asked about their life between lives, we each have a Soul Pod who agree to come in and help us in the life we choose to experience. If you stop to think of the people who have impacted your life, you will recognize them. I am in regular interaction with some of the people in my pod and it didn’t take me long to realize this new person had also agreed to come here and help me with this shift in my life as my eyesight changes and I have to make very creative adjustments in order to keep on doing my work. It was a very powerful and deeper recognition of two things, that I really did need help to get through this eyesight evolution, and she is a soulmate on an entirely different level. I knew that about three minutes into our conversation. Part of our meeting was a professional intake for potential essential services to be rendered but the first part was pure soul pod mates greeting each other again in recognition.

Think back on your life at the people who impacted your life and possibly changed your direction. It could be a teacher or a friend or it could be someone you never met whose insights or example resonated with you. We are influenced by many people in our life. It is through our own self-awareness that we create change in our own life. Keep your eyes open and see what gifts are being given to you at every turn.

===SING A DEEPER SONG ===

The Gift of Our Presence

The gift of our presence is to be given mindfully. It will have a deep and lasting impact.

The gift of our presence is to be given mindfully. It will have a deep and lasting impact. A phrase, a smile, a meaningful exchange, or even an awareness of the actions of another are part of the gift exchanges we give each other as we move through life.

Cara Lumen, March 2023

We create our future with every thought we think, every action we take. Move forward mindfully as you sing your Deeper Song.

Namaste,

Cara

Come Sing a Deeper Song

I help Transformational Leaders

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and expand our role in the New Consciousness

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Change The Way You Walk In The World

March 5, 2023 By Cara Lumen

Change The Way You Walk In The World

Living Our Deeper Song

Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!

I’m taking another look at my role in the world. How do I want this next phase of my life to be? What do I want to learn? What do I want to change? What do I want to release? What do I want to create?

The first thing I’m going to do is drop the time limit that is suggested by being 90. I continue to be told I look 20 years younger than my age. My life coach at Evergreen told me that her mother lived to be 118. I’m going to rethink the arbitrary time limit I have been considering around lifespans and get busy redefining my role in the world.

I begin by looking at what I have just been handed as a new place of service. It is also my new place of learning. If I have 15 or more years, what do I want to do with that? What do I want to accomplish? What do I want to learn? What do I want to change?

I have to change my consciousness about not just my role in the world – my very existence in the world. I spent all these years learning and becoming in order to turn and share – what? I am to help those of us who are ready to recognize ourselves as Light Bearers – Way Showers, if you will – to do our work in the world.

I had a conversation with one of the young people here recently about 3-D printing, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence – all things totally outside of my experience. But boy do I know spiritual philosophy. Perhaps my new role is to seed plant some of those concepts into the awareness of younger people who may not yet have discovered them and give them suggestions on where to go exploring to define their own belief system. This is not to make them believe what I believe, it is about opening a few doors and inviting them to go through and explore.

I do that by keeping immersed in my own learning process and excitedly sharing what I uncover. My enthusiasm alone will generate some desire in others to explore.

But I also get to change my own viewpoint for these next 20 years. I choose to see more of us become aware that we are devoted Light Workers focused on helping each other continue to raise our vibration as we work to restore the planet and its inhabitants to good health. From that place of service, we are to define our work in the world.

Some of us will lead by example. Some of us will lead by teaching. Some of us will lead by explaining and motivating others to expand their all-encompassing work.

I am now surrounded by a staff of people who have committed themselves to a lifetime of service to other people. It is not a role I’ve ever chosen for myself as far as physical service is concerned. I have been in service as an explorer and teacher of philosophical wisdom for most of my life. And that has allowed me to journey on a path of my own choosing.

I will listen to my inner guidance. I will be aware of the new opportunities that present themselves. And I will stay flexible and open to explore any new places of service that are revealed.

What do you expect of yourself? How do you expect yourself to grow and expand and explore? Give that some thought. Notice what calls to you and be ready to go exploring. Be open to change.

You are a Light Worker with a new role to play in the world. What exactly will that be?

DEEPER SONG AFFIRMATION

I look for and define my new role in the unfolding world.

DEEPER SONG PROCESS

Take time to visualize and explore what your next role may be.
Notice who else is on a similar path and see what they’re doing and what parts of that you’d like to incorporate into your own work.
Start walking down the new path and see how it suits you.

===INNER WORK===

Deepen Your Inner Awareness

How To Stop Overwhelm

You can stop feelings of overwhelm in seconds if you stop your mind and your actions and pause to inhale deeply into the center of your being. That singular shift of focus will help you let go of all the tension. Take another meditative breath and just rest in the centered calmness of your inner self.

They do a lot of pulse and oxygen checking around here and I can improve my readings in seconds by moving into a meditative state.

There are two steps to stopping overwhelm – realizing that you are stressed and in the process of moving into overwhelm, and taking active steps to change that direction and move back into centeredness.

Anchor that feeling of centeredness by looking out the window at nature. Keep breathing deeply until you are anchored in that centeredness and you feel your inner rhythm change. First notice, then fix. You can do this.

===SELF-HEALING===

Take Responsibility for Healing Yourself

The Answer Lies Within

Whatever the question, the answers lie within. We must learn to quiet our minds, ask the right questions, and trust the answer.

My original thought was about asking for guidance on decisions and choices that we make. But then I realized that I need to do that for a couple of things that I have going on in my body.

What is causing this particular physical response? What active choices am I to make to help it be restored to balance? Is there a lesson for me to get here?

I’m really good at getting philosophical ideas for myself but I have not practiced getting information from my body as much as I’m going to turn around and do.

When you ask your inner voice a question, it’s up to you to interpret the answer you get. I may try several forms of questions. What is the root of this information? Is there a message it wants to give me? How or what should I change? What can I do to balance and heal it?

I have some questions to ask and some work to do. Establish a working relationship with your body and let it tell you what it needs.

===OUTER WORK===

Explore New Potential and Possibilities

Express Your Passion

List five things that you are passionate about. I’ll wait.

I don’t exactly have five things, it more like one thing – For me it is my mind, learning, figuring things out (intuitively or by writing), and sharing what I learn. My passion lets me get excited about new ideas and concepts that takes me in a lot of different directions. What did you come up with? What are you most passionate about that is driving your life?

What are we going to do with this passion? What have you been doing with yours?

Write down what just popped into your head. Pause. Write down what else has just popped into your head. Now write down five ways you are going to explore and expand on that awareness. Ask to be shown places to serve.

Knowing that my passion is all tied up in learning, my biggest challenge is isolation. I will have to discover how I can adapt to that, accommodate that, work around that. I will listen more closely to the nudges of the universe by way of the unexpected ideas that show up.

How are you expressing your passion in the world and what new forms could it take?

Take Time To Organize In Order To Save Time

I just kept adding “To Do” notes to one increasingly long document on my computer. It has my daily reminder list that I have titled “Action” but it has gotten so full of things that finding anything on it is cumbersome. I put everything in there like stuff about astrology and keeping track of money and acknowledgments and birthdays. It was a big hot mess!

Then one day I decided to split that up and create a separate document of resources and keep the daily reminder as a more accurate and mobile document.

It took a while. But in the long run spending time to organize will save you time.

Because I work on my computer so much I find that using headings to create a table of contents is a very powerful way to access what is in the document. I still have too much variety in the second document but I don’t want to divide it up anymore and lose track of anything. I could put them in one separate folder. I’ll think about that.

Don’t forget about the search feature to find some keywords that you set in place.

If you ever have taken time to organize the tools around your workbench in the garage or in the kitchen drawers to make things more accessible, you know how important it is to keep your ideas in a well-organized format. Figure out what works for you and take time to organize in order to save time.

Organizing To Gain Clarity

The desktop of my computer was overrun with documents. I needed a better system. I decided to take time to re-think and re-organize – to establish a clarity purpose as well as develop a streamlined way to handle the details.

I have a couple of folders that are working very well. The newsletters are in one and it contains a subfolder containing the completed ones. I have a folder called “Tribe” in which I put all the emails that I write and receive that I want to keep into folders with the name of that person. I have folders for Recording my journaling and journeying in a folder called Inner Adventures.

See how this works? Cluster similar things together and you have less clutter.

Another organizing trick I heard was to turn the hangers of your clothes so they’re open toward you and when you wear them, you turn the open side away from you and at the end of the season you can tell what you wore and what you did not wear and decide whether to keep what you did not wear all season.

One of the best ideas my daughter and I discovered about downsizing is to think “up” as in shelves that are not very wide but offer higher stacked surfaces to put things on.

Especially if space is limited, you need to take time to organize. I’m beginning to do a little gardening in my small space and found a bag with handles that is high enough for me to reach to hold the watering can and plant food and spare pots that I will need. It takes up about a square foot of floor space. I’m thinking up, not out.

You might take everything out of your kitchen and put it in the garage and only bring in what you need and after a certain time, donate what is not been used to a good cause.

Look closely at what you use often and what you seldom use. Put what do you use the most in close proximity to where you stand according to their usage.

Pick a spot and organize it. In Feng Shui they start with an empty space and add one thing at a time until it feels balanced. Create balance in your environment by organizing and downsizing.

===DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE===

Self-Healing Spiritual Practice and Deepening Awareness of Our Cosmic Oneness

Setting Up A Sacred Space

I have several places in my small space that I consider sacred spaces. In them I have arrange items that have specific meaning to me.

I have a great statue of Quan Yin in the royal seated pose that I have moved to a more prominent place and have begun to put some meaningful objects around her base.

I honor the elements during my spiritual practice so I have a pointed orange calcite crystal to honor fire, a fossil to honor earth, a shell to honor water and a feather to honor air.

I have a four-tiered bamboo shelf that holds the crystals I was able to keep and other objects that I use in my spiritual practice. And I have my drums and native flutes right beside it.

I begin my spiritual practice by picking up my drum to play to the outside world before moving into the songs I made up for the elements.

As you begin to set up your sacred space, take time to ask what items want to come be in it. Keep it simple. Keep it meaningful.

===HOW TO BE A STRONG CONTRIBUTING MEMBER OF THE CIRCLE OF LIGHT BEARERS===

Expand Your Role in the Rapidly Evolving Universe

Allow Others To Walk Their Path

I look in amazement at some of the beliefs held by other people that are totally unfounded in fact. I watch some people try to impose their personal beliefs on the entire world around them.

Each of us is responsible for our own spiritual growth and development, but what do I do when I think the other person’s ideas are harmful and wrong? I move into protection mode.

I feel strongly about the caring for the environment. I have been a vegetarian for 40 years because it is a healthy lifestyle and because I don’t want to harm animals. I have followed my own eclectic metaphysical path for most of my life. I share my discoveries in order to open the door if someone is curious. But I still leave your choices up to you – unless they impact me.

We get in trouble when we try to impose our beliefs on others. For instance, I think it’s great when we make laws to protect a species or the environment. That benefits us all. But I am furious that the white male population in the US is trying to restrict a woman’s right to make choices about her own body.

Then there are those who are trying to censor entire cultures. I may not be drawn to ancestor worship but there are cultures that hold that as an important aspect of their daily life and teach that belief to their children. Our cultural mores are our inheritance and they have deep value.

What do you do if you feel the other person is totally wrong?

You can share your ideas if you can have a discussion in which you try to listen to what the other person is saying and learn what their beliefs systems are. Try to turn it into a learning experience in which you exchange ideas and get to know each other better. Even when you leave common ground, try to listen with the other person’s heart. Perhaps your job is to help them find their heart, not their mind.

Look at an exchange in which you delve into unfamiliar beliefs as a learning experience and try to see the belief systems from the other person’s viewpoint. Leave space for your individual belief systems to be enriched.

We can exchange ideas with those who are receptive to consider alternate ways of doing things, to consider our ideas or path of reasoning. Know when you can no longer find common ground and need to end the exchange.

Walk your path mindfully, hold your light high. Be open to new experiences but protect yourself as you also allow others to walk their own path.

===BROADEN YOUR HORIZON – EXPAND YOUR VIEW===

Raise Your Sights and Your Expectations

How To Work With the Formless Energies Of High Frequencies For Transmutation And Healing

Just read Sandra Ingerman’s Transformational News

===OUR EVOLVING FUTURE===

Support and Encouragement for our Unfolding Role in the Future

Artificial Intelligence

I just had my first demonstration of artificial intelligence when I looked at MacMost teaching us about ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer). You can use it to generate plots or expand on a character’s qualities but what I was most impressed with how fast it is.

For me, the whole joy of writing is to learn, to figure out what an idea means to me and how I might apply it to my life. I write for clarification. I write to deepen in my thinking. I like to trust my inner voice. I write because I have a very strong calling to do so. The writing is my form of self-discovery and growth. Artificial Intelligence won’t bring us that.

=== ===THE UNFOLDING DIVINE FEMININE=== ===

Explore and Interpret the Guidance and Messages of the Divine Feminine

Women Leaders are gathered together for the International Women’s ConferenceMarch 11. See also www.knowyourvalue.com

Repercussions From The Expansion Of The Divine Feminine

I watch this huge effort to deny the existence of other religions and races by the conservative white population in the United States and I wonder about the philosophies upon which they base their actions. I was Christian as a child and I learned we are to love everyone. However, I must admit that all pictures of Jesus were of a white man. There was no discussion about color or race or even belief system. As I began to explore other philosophies, I paid no attention to their country or race of origin. I simply embraced the philosophies that I resonated to. And all of those religions or philosophies were older than Christianity.

I took a comparative religion class in college in 1954 and was totally surprised to learn about all the other religions since I had simply been brought up in Christianity. I remember writing a note to the teacher saying how do we know if we are right? She left that for me to figure out for myself.

So here’s a little research I did on the Internet:

Top 6 major religions in historical order:

2300 BCE to 1500 BCE – Hinduism.
600 BCE to 500 BCE – Judaism.
600 BCE to 400 BCE – Buddhism.
1st Century CE – Christianity.
7th Century CE – Islam.
16th Century CE – Sikhism.

Major religious groups

Christianity (31.2%)
Islam (24.1%)
Irreligion (16%)
Hinduism (15.1%)
Buddhism (6.9%)
Folk religions (5.7%)
Sikhism (0.3%)
Judaism (0.2%)

I kept exploring:

Who is the oldest known God?

Inanna is among the oldest deities whose names are recorded in ancient Sumer. She is listed among the earliest seven divine powers: Anu, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Nanna, Utu, and Inanna.

What is world’s oldest religion?

The word Hindu is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, many practitioners refer to their religion as Sanātana Dharma (Sanskrit: सनातन धर्म, lit.

What religion came first?

Sometimes called the official religion of ancient Persia, Zoroastrianism is one of the world’s oldest surviving religions, with teachings older than Buddhism, older than Judaism, and far older than Christianity or Islam. Zoroastrianism is thought to have arisen “in the late second millennium B.C.E

With this much diversity, one religion cannot be better or more important than another. Humanity needs religion and it is as varied as the people on the earth.

It is a good idea to explore other cultures and other religions to define facets that resonate with you and bring it with you along your path.

I am quite drawn to Taoism. I like a lot of Buddhism. Many of my core spiritual practices are from Sherman.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran was a core book for me. It both deepened and broadened my spiritual exploration. I discovered that in my 40s and it was a major turning point for my philosophical development.

Although brought up as a Maronite Christian, Gibran, as an Arab, was influenced not only by his own religion but also by Islam, and especially by the mysticism of the Sufis. When I read The Prophet, I began to go exploring.

My spiritual path is eclectic and I would never ever expect anyone else to believe what I do unless they happen to. Go exploring and read the works of the masters from different cultures and see what resonates with you.

I like the Tao Te Chin, translated by Stephen Mitchell, The Essential Rumi, translation by Colman Barks and I like Deng, Ming Dao’s books that I first read 30 years ago. I’m currently starting Tai Chi with him on The Shift Network.

For me a great deal of my spirituality came together when I found the Center for Spiritual Living and became a spiritual practitioner and member of the clergy there. That spiritual philosophy is based on the work of Thomas Troward who studied all the world’s great religions.

My spiritual path is an eclectic mix of philosophical exploration that I have turned into my own unique spiritual journey. There is no one way, there is a general direction and one very broad path to get there. Allow everyone to have their own spiritual journey – including you.

===INTENTION BLESSING===

May we hear and heed the call of the Divine Feminine.

May we expand our hearts and our expectations.

May we walk the Path of Light with a sure foot.

May we keep our gaze on the summit.

May we take this journey with a full heart.

I entwine my light with yours as we move forward to guide the way.

===REFLECTIONS OF A DEEPER SONG PODCAST===

Expanding Awareness

Are You Afraid of Change?

Listen to my
Reflections of a Deeper Song Podcast on
Apple / Spotify / Googleand the
Deeper Song Website

==== DEEPER SONG EXPLORATION ===

I am encouraging everyone I see to sign up to The Shift Network as a source of major learning. They have amazing week-long free summits filled with fascinating teachers and broadening information. It is where I learned what Shamanism is and found my teachers. It is a major source of learning for me. I have just finished a fabulous week on a Qigong Summit. I have studied online with them for years. Just get on their list and see what shows up that calls to you.

===CARA’S CORNER===

Choices and Need

I actually spent two days online trying to decide what specific plants to add to my small space. I wavered from a 2-inch, seven dollar container with three plants in it that can be separated into separate containers, to wanting to invest in a tall slender plant stand so I can have more plants. I am undoubtedly hungry to be outside. All of my gardening supplies we left behind when I moved and I have to carefully choose what I bring into this small space. What I really want to do is drive a mile down the road and get a red coleus that’s not going to even be ready for six weeks.

Have you ever had a hunger that you could not fill? I need that was calling only to you? An excitement about a possibility that you had to manifest?

So far, I have not purchased a single thing and I’ve been at this for a couple of days. If I would just pause, it will be nice enough to go outside in the very nice garden outside my window.

A few days later I discovered there is a man named Ron living here who has lots and lots of plants in his window in a set up that was made for him by his son. I have asked my social worker to help me go visit him to talk gardening and so I can figure out how to add more plants to my space.

It’s interesting to get a very strong need and try to figure out how to fill it. And when to fill it. Or even if to fill it.

What did you cut out of your life that you want back in and what are you going to do about that?

===SING A DEEPER SONG ===

The Empty Space

It was a hole that needed filling, a need, a desire, so I went exploring.

It was a hole that needed filling, a need, a desire, so I went exploring. I have much less space now so I need to choose thoughtfully.

It was a hole that needed filling, a need, a desire, so I went exploring. I have much less space now so I need to choose thoughtfully. What is the need that created this vacancy and how do I fill it?

Cara Lumen – March 2023

We create our future with every thought we think, every action we take. Move forward mindfully as you sing your Deeper Song.

Namaste,

Cara

Come Sing a Deeper Song

I help adventurers who are ready to explore the new possibilities in the emerging energy of the Divine Feminine to align their dreams and choices with what is emerging as possible today so that they go beyond their own expectations.

Please forward this newsletter to a friend and suggest they
Join the Deeper Song Community

Past Issues of this newsletter are being curated on my site on a page called Insights.

Our Global Deeper Song Community

Subscribe to this weekly Deeper Song Newsletter at www.deepersong.com

My Books

How To Be A Positive Voice of The Future

February 25, 2023 By Cara Lumen

How To Be A Positive Voice of The Future

Living Our Deeper Song

Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!

Artificial intelligence is redefining the workplace and that means it is time for each of us to re-examine and repurpose our own unique gifts.

A technical friend of mine said this was like the industrial revolution when everyone thought all sorts of jobs would be lost. Many forms of work did disappear but they were replaced with new jobs using different skills.

There’s no question that artificial intelligence has entered the workplace and is in the process of rearranging how we do things. It is possible that your entire profession may be altered forever.

How you need to change

Most of all that probably means you need to develop a different gift than you’ve been using. And it probably means you get to get creative on how you get your training for this next form of your profession life.

All of my friends are in the vicinity of sixty and some of them are busy redefining themselves as independent business people often times in fields they have not been in before and that often have developed out of hobbies or secondary interests.

When you stop to realize that when you were 60 years old you have another 30 years of productive life ahead of you, you do indeed get to redefine your place in the world perhaps by starting a new business in a new profession.

Examine your entire life for ideas

So far in your life you have explored and developed a variety of interesting skills. Now is a good time to look closely at which ones of those interests particularly resonated with you to see if they are a potential new source of income.

It could be a fairly new interest or it could be a secondary interest you’ve had all your life. It could be you need to repurpose a gift. I’m a writer and I can turn in any direction and write. What about a gift you have not used for many years? Examine your litany of gifts and interests from the standpoint of their potential as a new source of income.

Develop a new view of your value in the workplace.

Be as creative and imaginative as you can possibly be in imagining potential sources of income. Give some thought to creating your own online business. Downsize your living platform so it is more affordable to support. Look at a secondary career choice that you wanted to make years ago and see if that’s feasible now. Talk to people you know to find out how the job market is changing and what that means they need in the way of employees. A temp agency might be an interesting place to have a conversation on the changing labor demands. Perhaps do some temp work in the fields that interest you to learn more about it. I had a great time temping all over New York City and got to work in a myriad of businesses.

This is the perfect time to reconsider how you want to contribute in the world.

Depending on where you are in life and your financial circumstance, planning your next 30 years is an exciting place to begin. Examine how you want to contribute further to the world and explore the ones that call most to you. There might be a cause you want to become more involved with. You may want to turn a hobby into a business.

Be creative. Be flexible. Be adventuresome. Enthusiastically design your next place of service and source of income in the world.

It’s time to redefine your place of service in the rapidly changing workplace

DEEPER SONG AFFIRMATION

I examine my entire life to find out how I am to be in service in the world next.

DEEPER SONG PROCESS

Examine your entire life and choose three fields in which you would like to contribute next.
Go exploring to find out what opportunities there are and what training you need.
Identify other people in that field and contact them to find out how they developed their business or where they got their training or whatever facet of how they are showing up in the world that you would like to manifest.
Explore more deeply into those paths that call to you.

===INNER WORK===

Deepen Your Inner Awareness

Journal To Look Within

Sometimes we have to look deeply within to find the answers we seek. One of the ways to do that is to journal. When we write down one idea, we seem to feel that we have that safely captured and that allows us to look at the idea underneath it. When we write down the second idea and once again feel we have safely captured that concept, we can find whatever is under that layer. If you are seeking an answer, perhaps use this capture-one-layer-at-a-time method to move more deeply within to locate your excitement, your apprehension, and even unfold and consider some new possibilities for action. You could do this by drawing pictures too. Stick figures will allow you to follow the gist of the concept.

The point is to capture one layer of insight so that you can reveal the layer underneath it and go exploring in the inner world. There are many adventures there. And answers.

What Are Your Gifts?

I have rediscovered one of my gifts that I apparently have not been using and it’s good to see that in action again. Something about the kind, caring people in this long-term care facility in which I now live has brought up my wise cracking, always curious, always-happy side. I create a lot of smiles and that is a good thing. I may have had this gift all my life but I have never seen it in such healthy action. It surprises me at times.

What situations and circumstances bring out the gifts that you enjoy sharing?

===SELF-HEALING===

Take Responsibility for Healing Yourself

Take Stock

Periodically it’s good to pause to take stock of how you’re doing on many levels. Taking stock of how you’re doing physically is one of the most important self-care steps you can take because the changes can be subtle. I haven’t done this but I think the idea of doing a quarterly check in on all levels of your life would be a good idea. Actually write them down and put a date on it so you can keep track of what still needs work. I think I’ll start a wellness journal today and do a check in to see what needs attention. Then I’ll put a reminder on my calendar for three months down the line to see how I’m doing and what I need to do more of or less of. How will you design your wellness check in process?

===OUTER WORK===

Explore New Potential and Possibilities

How Do You Make Choices?

Are you an impulsive person or do you need a bit of time before making a choice? Or are you somewhere in between? How do you make your choices?

I am an intuitive, trust my-instincts-in-the-moment person and I’ve made some very large decisions in seconds that have been perfect choices.

It’s fine to examine your options but it’s not good to overthink. My instincts to make major moves across the country were made in minutes and I never questioned them even though they’ were huge choices. And it happened three times in my life.

Sometimes I only get a knowing that gradually emerges. When I moved into assisted living, I knew that I was entering a new path of service but it did not begin to take form until I realized that my interaction with this kind, loving staff is at the core.

Practice trusting your intuition. I remember being in a grocery store once when a woman asked me where the mustard was and I got an instant inner voice that said it was on the fourth shelf down. I told her that and it was true. No contemplation, just an intuitive answer that I spoke out loud. Practice trusting your intuition and your inner voice will get stronger.

Are You Still Going In The Direction Of Your Choosing?

Are you getting closer or further away from the goals you have set for yourself? Have you discovered a new direction you’d rather move toward? Are you still going in the direction of your choosing?

I don’t have a particular timetable for doing this kind of a check in but I probably should. It’s very easy to go off on a tangent and end up someplace you had no intention of going. It’s also possible to discover a new important detour you must take from the direction you’re going to purposely explore and possibly decide to alter your directions entirely. Those decisions need to be made consciously and mindfully.

I like to choose the solstices and equinox as organic times to thoughtfully examine where I am, if I am still going in the direction I intended and if it is still where I want to go next.

Getting off course can happen organically if you find a new aspect to examine and explore. Sometimes it is a conscious choice. Sometimes it is the result of curiosity. But we do periodically need to pause to re-examine and assess where we are, where we’re going and where we want to go.

How deeply should I go exploring? I might examine areas like my spiritual and physical status and see what I still need to learn.

The Spring Equinox is Monday, March 20, 2023 4:24 PM. How will you reset your sights then?

How Curious Are You?

It is good to be curious. It is good to wonder how things work, why things are showing up in our life, to wonder how you might help make a change. Even if you are just a little bit curious, go exploring and see what that idea means to you in your life and your potential choices. Become a curious explorer and see what adventures it takes you on.

I love to learn so I’m forever taking a whisper of an idea and exploring it more deeply. If anything interesting shows up, I look to see how can I add it to my life to make it more powerful and meaningful.

Perhaps this week you can go exploring a bit. Wander down a few unmarked paths and let your curiosity guide you into some new ventures and see what calls to you.

===DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE===

Self-Healing Spiritual Practice and Deepening Awareness of Our Cosmic Oneness

Acknowledge The Gifts Of Our Day

There’s something very satisfying about coming to the end of your day and reviewing the gifts and lessons and decisions that you made.

Take time to contemplate the opportunities and insights offered. Perhaps even meditate on the ones that particularly resonate to see how much deeper you want to go in that direction. And of course give gratitude for the insights and interactions you’ve had throughout the day and the unexpected gifts you received.

Before I moved, my window looked out at the setting sun. That is a really interesting time to contemplate your life and your day. You can make a ceremony out of it by lighting a candle to bless your day and to give gratitude for the day that has passed and to bless the day that is coming.

How will you begin to acknowledge the gifts of your day?

===HOW TO BE A STRONG CONTRIBUTING MEMBER OF THE CIRCLE OF LIGHT BEARERS===

Expand Your Role in the Rapidly Evolving Universe

Live As A Light Being

One of the ways that I help myself feel empowered and useful is to see myself as light. I have to go deep within to a meditative state to feel that but when I lose myself, I understand that I have new work to do. I am being asked to join with others to raise the vibration of our planet. As a Light Being I can bring love and harmony and serenity and peace when I direct my attention.

Do you see how I am encouraging myself to participate in the world at a whole new level? We are all light but sometimes we let ourselves get in the way of that awareness.

In your meditation experience yourself as a light. When you stand in nature dissolve yourself into the harmony of the energy of the planet and do some healing work. Center and nourish and nurture and heal wherever you go about your day. You are a Light Worker. You are a being of light. Keep doing the work.

===BROADEN YOUR HORIZON – EXPAND YOUR VIEW===

Raise Your Sights and Your Expectations

We Must Do The Work!

I have been going through physical therapy since having hip replacement surgery which dramatically changed my entire posture into a more upright view of the world. I have had physical therapy and occupational therapy and although in the beginning it was very challenging, I now look forward to it as an opportunity to work with them to increase my stamina and stability and strength. It is totally up to me to do the work. I am the one who must find time to stand and straighten and stretch throughout my day.

The physical therapists are good at saying, “just one more” and then you try one more time. They seem to know when to ask you for a few more minutes at one task and also when to stop. I have learned to trust them. However, I am the only one who can do the work and the only one who can make the change happen.

At what point do we stop trying? Is it that it gets too hard? We forget to do it? We lose interest and motivation? It makes no difference. We have to work through those stumbling blocks and get the job done.

How do you want to age? Do you want to stay strong or do you want to allow your body to gradually stop supporting you?

Do the work. You are the only one who can. It’s your choice to make and what you choose will greatly impact the quality of your life.

A Major Hole In My Education

I am in a slight state of shock because I have just discovered an entire area of ignorance on my part that I didn’t even know I had. I had just never given it any thought.

A good number of the Med-Aids here are from Africa. Now that alone is very interesting since this is Kansas, the center of the United States. How did so many people from the continent of Africa end up here? But what I learned recently that for some reason I never grasped is that there are 54 countries in the Continent of Africa and I have not given that any thought until now. I just thought of Africa in relation to apartheid as one big continent, which it is, but I never thought about where Kenya and Nigeria, and all those individual countries were. That’s when I went on Wikipedia and realized how little I knew about the countries in Africa. I’m going to start studying it. Nothing like deepening my education at the age of 90. It’s definitely a hole in my awareness that I plan to correct.

So I have begun to go online to Wikipedia and began with Ethiopia because that’s where the person who prompted this new adventure is from.

What new area do you want to explore and will you do it?

===OUR EVOLVING FUTURE===

Support and Encouragement for our Unfolding Role in the Future

A Feeling of Helplessness

We must be aware of the repercussions of our actions – how our choices affect not just others but the impactful consequences they have on the future.

The Republicans in Congress in the US do not want to fund Social Security or Medicaid or increase that debt ceiling. That would mean that a percentage of the population would have no source of income, no food stamps nor Social Security in their old age. Can you imagine yourself in that situation?

I’m 90 and totally dependent on Social Security and am in no condition to go provide for myself. This long-term care facility is full of people who have no way to provide for themselves.

Before you go about changing anything in the world, look closely at the impact it will have on others. Think it through to see how it impacts even those in the furthermost corners.

I’m watching scared old white men try to control women by controlling our bodies. They are scared of the rise of the Divine Feminine. I’m not sure what the reasoning is of those who want to defund the poor and old. They certainly are not trying to care for the over-arching population.

Before you take any sort of an adamant stand on any topic, make sure you examine the repercussions to everyone involved. Educate yourself about their situation and their needs. You can give them a choice, but you cannot mandate. It is not your place in the world.

===REFLECTIONS OF A DEEPER SONG PODCAST===

Spiritual Practice

Three Ways To Raise Your Vibration

Listen to my
Reflections of a Deeper Song Podcast on
Apple / Spotify / Googleand the
Deeper Song Website

===CARA’S CORNER===

Is Your Who-And-Do-What Still Accurate?

I learned the Who-And-Do-What statement in Michael Port’s first Book Yourself Solid Coaching Certification class (It’s in his book Book Yourself Solid). It is a very powerful way to condense the purpose of your entire business into a statement that makes people immediately identify and understand that they are someone you could help.

I had not thought about mine for a while even though I periodically help my younger friends with theirs. But they’re in their 60s and are actually still doing business online. It was quite helpful for me to write my new one.

My Who and Do What

I help people who are actively contemplating their aging process

to expect and plan for a fascinating, productive aging experience

so that they can be impactful all their lives.

Who and Do What Statement

I help (who you help)

To (what you help them do)

So That (what they accomplish).

What is your Who and Do What statement?

===SING A DEEPER SONG ===

My Purpose

My purpose in life has changed over time and then again it hasn’t.

My purpose in life has changed over time and then again it hasn’t. I have always loved to learn and turn and share what I lead.

My purpose in life has changed over time and then again it hasn’t. I have always loved to learn and turn and share what I lead. My audience and I are aging together and our role as Light Workers is to open new paths and show others the way.

—Cara Lumen, February,2023

We create our future with every thought we think, every action we take. Move forward mindfully as you sing your Deeper Song.

Namaste,

Cara

Come Sing a Deeper Song

Please forward this newsletter to a friend and suggest they
Join the Deeper Song Community

Past Issues of this newsletter are being curated on my site on a page called Insights.

Our Global Deeper Song Community

Subscribe to this weekly Deeper Song Newsletter at www.deepersong.com

My Books

How To Design Your “Next”

February 18, 2023 By Cara Lumen

How To Design Your “Next”

Living Our Deeper Song

Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!

I had been living in Santa Rosa, California for 17 years and in order to afford the house I rented, I needed to have a housemate. One was not showing up this time. I suddenly knew that it was time for me to move and begin a new phase of my life. My daughter had said that when I needed physical help, I needed to come to Kansas City where she lived and worked.

I got online, looked at apartments near where my daughter lived, called her and told her I was coming. She checked out the apartments I had found and I rented one. Within a month I was on my way moving from California to Kansas.

What I didn’t know was what would unfold next. My daughter took one look at me and said I need knee replacements which I had never even heard of. In the process of doing that, I stopped earning my living as a Content Development Coach and it became evident that financially I needed to move into subsidized independent living where I could live on just my Social Security. This happened in the space of a year.

Give some thought to your aaging process. Understand what you can afford. Anticipating how much help you need to manage physically is a whole other challenge because it definitely sneaks up on you. Then actively start designing the next part of your life.

It was hard for me to give up my car as my eyesight diminished. It was a strong loss of freedom and independence. Then it became hard for me to walk to do my laundry or take out my trash. Notice your physical changes and be prepared to make a major change in order to have the physical help that you need. Find the people who are trained and willing to do that.

Although I needed a lot of help to make this move, I have never wanted to be dependent on my daughter. Taking care of an older person requires physical stamina and a definite degree of skill. The people that are caring for me now are professionals who chose this line of work. Don’t leave the physical care you need as you age to your children. Keep on being responsible for your own life including your aging process.

See if you can identify what is important in your life and try to keep providing it. It was important that I get to bring two live plants to my new space. And if someone would give me a third plant with maroon leaves, I might even cry. Having that life around me is that important.

Explore all types of communities for seniors to determine the type of support you need and the social life you have in mind. My computer supplies so much learning and entertainment and connection with my friends that it is a cornerstone of my daily life. I am a loner so my computer is more important than any social activities a place may provide. Just know those kinds of things about yourself and honor them when you make your choice of a new place to live.

Don’t try to stay in your home when you are no longer capable of taking care of yourself. My daughter and her husband live in a split-level house which is going to get harder for them to live in as they both age.

Be clear about what physical support you need your new environment. I am being more productive with this extra physical support than I have in the last five years without it.

They are not building very many more of these subsidized independent living facilities in the US and the waiting list can be as long as two or three years so make your choice and get on the list before you need it.

Decide what is really important for you and keep in your life as long as possible but not at the expense of your family.

My sense is that there is subsidized housing everywhere but because the Boomer population is coming up, there will be a scarcity unless they build more. Go exploring and see what will work for you. The waiting list can be several years, particularly as the older population proceeds to grow faster than the community is being built to support it.

Take a close look at what do you want to have in your life during this next stage of your life. Then go exploring until you find the perfect place for you to move to next. Design your own future living experience and make sure you have the assistance and care that you need as you age.

DEEPER SONG AFFIRMATION

I go exploring to find new living opportunities and thoughtfully design the next phase of my life.

DEEPER SONG PROCESS

Do some very specific assessments of your current physical, emotional, and financial situation to begin to assess your future housing needs.
Literally make a list of what you want in your future life and prioritize it.
Begin to network with your friends and relatives to find out what types of independent living or assisted living are available. Go exploring and perhaps get on a list or two.
Begin to visualize how you want this next phase of your life. Do you want to be with people? Do you want to have access to learning? Do you need to be in nature? Identify the aspects that appeal to you and prioritize them.
Network to get recommendations. Go exploring. Check out a few places and get on a few lists if something appeals to you. Imagine yourself in these various situations and begin to select the elements that you want in this next portion of your life.
Know yourself. Know what you need emotionally and physically. But also listen to what your family describes as your limitations.
We have control even as we need more help. Go exploring while you are physically able to examine potential living spaces and then get on a few lists and see what unfolds. Take charge of your future as you age. But be honest about what you truly need.

===INNER WORK===

Deepen Your Inner Awareness

How To Create A Ceremony

A ceremony can be simple or elaborate. It begins with establishing the purpose of your ceremony. Do you want to release or receive or honor?

A ceremony begins with an intention.

A ceremony can be focused on releasing something, blessing something, changing something or honoring something. Or a ceremony can be made in order to attract something into your life. Set your intention. What is the purpose of your ceremony?

Create Sacred Space

Preparations for your ceremony can be simple or elaborate. It can be indoors or outdoors. Set your intention to create a sacred space and let your inner voice help you arrange it accordingly.

Decide on the form the ceremony will take.

If it is a ceremony of releasing what form will the releasing take?

Will you burn something or tear up a piece of paper? Will you dissolve something in liquid? Would you blow it out on soap bubbles? What symbolic move will you make that indicates you are releasing whatever it is you choose to release?

If it is a ceremony of honoring or attraction, what are your offering or attracting?

Is it a blessing? Is it an affirmation? How are you going to express your intention to attract something different into your life or into a situation?

Open Your Awareness

Choose your intention, focus your awareness and set up your sacred space. Think of this as creating a small receptive surface to focus your ceremony.

When you’re ready to begin your ceremony, place yourself in a state of receptivity. You might begin by taking calming centering breaths. You might use a mantra like AUM. You might light a candle or use flower essences. Create your own method for bringing yourself into the heart of the ceremony. Let your inner voice guide you. As you proceed with your ceremony, trust the nudges you get from your inner voice. Whatever images and ideas that show up are meant for only you to interpret.

You can sing. You can play music. You can state affirmations. This is your ceremony. Craft it so that it speaks deeply to you.

If you move into a meditative journey, go to your Sacred Garden, trust what shows up. They are metaphors only you are to interpret. Ask for the guidance and clarity that you seek.

Journal to Go Deeper

When you take time to write about your experience, it captures your surface awareness and allows you to explore what lies beneath it and move more deeply into the more subtle message and insights that you received.

Before you close your ceremony, pause to review your experience and notice what has shifted within you both energetically and in your expectations.

Close the ceremony with gratitude

When your ceremony is complete, bring it to a close with gratitude. Offer gratitude to your metaphorical guides that offered you insights into the universe and large. When you feel complete, honor the energy of the items you used in the ceremony by placing them carefully away in a sacred place.

Create ceremonies for many purposes.

Honor the Solstice or the Equinox with ceremonies you design.

Create ceremonies to release. Release worry and anxiety. Release energy and ideas that no longer serve you.

Create ceremonies to attract positive energy to a situation or circumstance.

You could create a ceremony to begin your day, to end your day, to begin or end your work, to honor a family member or friend, or to attract positive insights and ideas to help you move forward.

Ceremonies can be simple or elaborate. Set your intention, create your steps, and conduct your ceremony with strong intention. And then watch the results that manifest.

Take Time for Contemplation

Contemplation is about thoughtfully and mindfully considering an idea or topic by examining it from various angles to see if it is still aligned with your goals, your philosophy, and the path you have chosen.

It is a good idea to thoughtfully contemplate your profession, your relationships, your health, your spiritual growth, and your role in the world on a regular basis. That means you take time to look at each of those areas from different perspectives to see if you are going in the direction you want to go and if you are taking advantage of all the new opportunities that are presenting themselves.

As we move along our lives, we are presented with new concepts, new opportunities, and new possibilities. New objectives appear and we must make adjustments and course corrections to make certain we are aligned with our innermost awareness and goals.

Make time to contemplate various aspects of your life, to make certain that you still want to go in the direction you’re going, and decide what you can do to change that direction if you choose.

Look closely at your profession to see how it is changing, what new opportunities are opening up and decide if what you are doing still resonates with you. Re-choose and make a course correction.

Look closely at your relationships – your friendships, your professional interactions – to make certain they are nurturing, rewarding and aligned with your current goals. Change what is necessary. Look closely to see if that change needs to come from within you.

Go exploring to see what new elements you might add to your spiritual practice that would bring you deeper insights, greater understanding and new adventures. Explore the new paths that have opened up and create and adjust until you find the right balance for this point in time.

Take time to rethink and re-choose on a regular basis. Perhaps align these moments of reflection with phases of the moon or the seasons, but several times a year look closely at where you are, what got you there, what has changed, where you want to go next, and what you need to do to make that happen. Then re-choose, take action and move forward.

Answers From Within

Your inner voice is your best friend. It can help you figure out what to do next. It can give you answers to a problem. All you have to do is turn within, and ask and listen. Do you do that?

Trust the answers. Follow the thoughts and insights to receive the guidance you seek. That’s your inner voice speaking to you. Learn to interpret it. Learn to trust it.

===SELF-HEALING===

Take Responsibility for Healing Yourself

Surrender and Accept

Sometimes things just need to be the way they are. We have to accept that and we have to move on. It doesn’t mean you don’t try to change something but it does mean you recognize when changes are not going to happen and accept it.

That may mean that you have to change some plans, perhaps even a major focus. It may mean that you have to put off a dream or get busy and make it happen now. We do need to think big. We do need to use our imagination to explore new possibilities. We do need to vision. We need to feel our own creative ability as we move through life, but we also need to recognize when change is not going to happen and move around it or through it or beyond it.

How Well Are You Caring For Yourself Emotionally?

Emotions are subtle. They begin as small pokes and nudges but sometimes they get out of hand and we can we find ourselves out of balance.

How do you do an emotional wellness check? I think you need to create your own system but there are certain aspects of your emotional and over-all well-being to keep track of. Here are some I thought of. You may want to add to it. Perhaps begin by rating these on a scale of one to 10 – 10 being very satisfied

Overall Happiness
Physical Well-being
Feel appreciated/loved
Mentally stimulated
Interestingly interactive with the world
My impact in the world
What action steps will I take?
Satisfaction/Contentment

Answer these for yourself before you read on.

Here’s what I discovered. This is what is true for me at this point in time.

Overall Happiness – 8

I am very happy considering my body is still recovering from hip replacement surgery and my whole body is a bit grouchy. But I am in a good place to live and I’m experiencing an extremely positive response to the kind,loving, caring people around me on the staff. My mind is my best friend and entertainment. We stay very busy.

Physical Well-being – 3-4

At this moment in time, I’m doing major body healing but there are still a ton of things that need to keep healing. I am gradually being able to stand up straighter than I have in years and that’s calling for all sorts of physical adjustments. And I still have to contend with my diminishing eyesight both physically and psychologically. It looks like there is a lot that still needed here and a whole lot of work on my part to heal my body.

Feel appreciated/loved -10

I have a few longtime friends that I speak with regularly online that nurture and support and stimulate me. We are important in each other’s lives. My move to long-term care has put me in contact with a kind and loving and smart staff and I am having some of the most stimulating interactions of my life.

Mentally stimulated -10

This is a very important area for me and I’m really good at making it happen. I am going to have to get very creative in order to work around my diminishing eyesight. This is an opportunity for me to get really innovative.

Interestingly interactive with the world – 10

I’m doing the work. I keep listening to understand the overall direction our planet is taking. I know that more and more of us are recognizing the light within ourselves and are raising our vibration so others can see that soul light in themselves. This is inner awareness work and I am consciously expanding it.

Impactful in the world-10

I am doing daily energy and contemplation work to impact the world. I explore and write about ways to be in the world. I encourage others to be active, aware Light Workers in raising the consciousness of the planet. And I have a strong and fluid spiritual practice. I continue to deepen my own awareness and share those insights with others. I know I’m changing some lives but I actually don’t know to what degree. This journey of mine that I share with others is for my growth as well as to stimulate a deeper awareness of choices in the lives of others. I’m not actually impacting the world at a rate of 10 but my intentions are high and I’m giving my all.

Satisfaction/Contentment- 8

This is all up to me. If I am not satisfied and content, what am I going to do about it? What do I need to do more? Less? Differently? I’m focused on healing my body. I’m trying not to be scared about my diminishing eyesight. I have great friends online who are loving and nurturing.

What action steps will I take?

I have four areas of focus – my physical recovery, my mental expansion/simulation, my spiritual expansion and how I can help change the world for the better. I am active in all of these areas.

What did you discover when you took this quiz? What steps will you take to expand your life experience?

===OUTER WORK===

Explore New Potential and Possibilities

How Thoughtfully Do You Fill Your Day?

How do you fill your days? Do you make mindful choices? You go with a spontaneous flow? Do you live deliberately in each moment? Or are you kind of a free spirit floating through your day?

Being both deliberate and spontaneous can make for a fun day. I deliberately read my email every morning but I spontaneously stop and write in this newsletter when an idea from what I’m reading calls to me. I interrupt my day often to explore ideas through writing.

In my depressed days before I moved to long-term care, I’d waste hours on Spider Solitaire and reruns. Now that I am happier my days are much more interesting and productive.

Continue to explore and learn as you age. Perhaps you expand a hobby that you have enjoyed all your life – maybe even turn it into an income stream. Perhaps you now have time to volunteer to help a cause that is dear to your heart. Notice how you spend your time and see how you would like to adjust it.

What do you want to learn? Do you want to learn to play a musical instrument? I’m playing my drums and thumb piano. Do you want to study a specific topic? I want to finish the Joe Dispenza’s book and read the third Michael Newton book about life between lives. I’m taking Deng Ming-Dao’s newest Tai Chi class. There is a great deal of exciting work for me to do there. And I keep getting nudges. I’ve begun to reread some of the books I have found meaningful in the past. I’m adding more mindful movement to my day that will help my body strengthen itself. I would like to listen to more classical music. I would like to journey more.

How do you spend your time? Does it deepen your awareness, or expand your knowledge or lead you down a new path? Examine how you spend your time and see if it is producing the results you desire. How thoughtfully do you fill your day and what changes do you need to make?

Are You Sharing Your Gifts With Others?

We have been given gifts in our life to help us live an impactful life and we have gifts we are to give to others. Are you aware of those gifts? How are you sharing them? What is changing as a result?

I have been a metaphysical explorer for a good portion of my life and that continues today.

I feel I am at the beginning of a new phase of exploration but that’s all I know. I get little glimmers but no major light how shown up to show me the way yet. What is calling to you? And how are you exploring it and how are you turning to share it with others?

Put Yourself Out There

I have begun to sit in my wheelchair in the doorway of my room that leads into the hall. I’m doing it because I can move my legs back-and-forth to free then from the stiffness of sitting. But the benefits have been unexpected. I have begun to meet some of the residents. I’m also going to greet more of the staff who probably know me better than I know them even though I have a list going in an effort to keep track of everybody.

Today Ruth stopped by on her way down the hall. Ruth is 94 and told me there are several people here are in their 100’s and one who is 104. I get to change my vision and start planning what I want to do for the next 12 or 13 years. That’s a long time.

Another person stopped by whose husband used to live here. She is now leading some of the volunteer activities several times a week. I’m not a huge fan of group activities but it was lovely to see how touched her heart was by this place of service she has created for herself.

Two of the staff members went on a hunt for my navy blue cover with sleeves which has gone to the laundry and had not come back. We have name tags on everything. Leah from laundry remembered that she had put it in the closet of someone named Carol since our names were similar. We found it. Those were some of the adventures I had simply because I chose to put myself forward and sit in the hall and speak to whomever passed by.

What small steps can you take in your life that would change your experience simply because you placed yourself in a different environment? Go exploring and see what gifts you receive.

===DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE===

Self-Healing Spiritual Practice and Deepening Awareness of Our Cosmic Oneness

Forgiveness

Who do you need to forgive? Who would you like to forgive you?

I made an unusual choice 40 years ago that impacted my children and they have not forgiven me. However, if I had not made that choice, I would not have been able to explore and travel the deep path of service to others that I have been on for 40 years. I have been following my inner voice and have made some very dramatic changes all my life.

Who do you need to forgive? Why? Who are the people that you wish would forgive you?

I have followed my deepest calling all my life because it has been so strong in me. Many of the people in my life have no idea the depth of passion that drives me because my choices are not something they would ever consider doing.

My life experience has been that I come together with people who share a current mutual interest and when those interests change so does our friendship.

It makes sense that even family members do not all like the same things. Our job then becomes to find figure out how to love them and at the same time give them space to follow the unique path they are called to take.

Who do you know in your life who has made unusual choices that you have not forgiven them for? Is there anyone in your life who has not forgiven you for a choice you made from the core of your being?

Look carefully at the grudges you hold. Let them go. There was a reason that lesson came into your life. Did you get it?

I know that my choices have been unusual but they were done with passion and commitment and a deep sense of being called along a particular path. I have a deeper song to sing and I can only do it if I am free to follow its call.

There are people who don’t approve of me or of my choices. But I answered my own strong calling and continue to deepen my song.

Give people space to answer their own calling.

===HOW TO BE A STRONG CONTRIBUTING MEMBER OF THE CIRCLE OF LIGHT BEARERS===

Expand Your Role in the Rapidly Evolving Universe

What Are Your Priorities?

How do you prioritize the events of your day? How do you prioritize the tasks that you undertake? The fun times you schedule? What is the criteria by which you choose them?

Entertaining my mind is usually my top priority but healing my body from my hip replacement is a close second.

Do you choose the task because it is easy? Because it has a timeline? Because it is more fun? All of those are reasons we give ourselves to prioritize the elements of our day.

You have to decide. Sone people do the hardest things first. Some people do the fun things first. What are the qualities by which you prioritize your day? Give that some thought.

===BROADEN YOUR HORIZON – EXPAND YOUR VIEW===

Raise Your Sights and Your Expectations

The Upper 10%

I’d be willing to bet that everyone who reads this newsletter is in the upper 10 percentile of intelligence. That makes us responsible in this world in a way that others are not.

Sometimes that makes it hard to find friends because we have to find other ten-percenters. Sometimes it makes your choices seem unusual to the other 90%. We have special work to do, unique places of service to fill and high examples to set.

Knowing that you are in the upper 10 percentile is not about being special, it is about being responsible for holding up our light to show others the way. It is about saving our planet, exploring the higher path and marking the trail.

===OUR EVOLVING FUTURE===

Support and Encouragement for our Unfolding Role in the Future

Care For Mother Earth

Our home is Mother Earth. She supplies the air we breathe, she supplies us with water and food and air to sustain us. Because we no longer live close to the land, we sometimes forget that caring for Gaia is our responsibility every day.

What kind of a footprint are you leaving? Are you stomping around cluttering litter on the land? Or are you moving mindfully in nature?

I know what it’s like to live in a city where there is only concrete beneath your feet. I lived only a block away from Central Park but I remember walking five or six blocks to Lincoln Center to be able to see a full moon. But in California I could watch the moon from my front stoop.

I now live in a retirement center where the rooms encircle a garden tended by master gardeners and a Koi pond to meditate by when the weather is warmer. There is a bird feeder outside my window and I can watch the sunrise and feel the sun on my body all morning. A few days ago, I saw a very large raccoon walking up the sidewalk.

Find a way you can communicate with nature every day. That may mean standing at the window to observe the subtle changing of the seasons. It may mean taking a walk in the woods. It may mean taking a few moments before you get in the car to look up at the sky, to look at the trees, to listen to the sounds of nature. And of course, spend a few moments in nature when you return in order to change the rest of your evening.

Are you aware of the footprints you leave on the Earth? You know how to do this. Carry cloth bags to hold your groceries so you don’t use either plastic or paper. Convert to solar power as soon as you possibly can. Consume organic food so you don’t support businesses that used pesticides that harm the environment. Help others to become aware of their role in protecting Gaia. Be a visible protector of Mother Earth.

What percentage of people who you know are consciously and actively caring for the Earth? It is much fewer than those who are mindlessly harming it. See who you can educate today in a way that will help them take better care of Mother Earth. And keep doing the work yourself.

=== ===THE UNFOLDING DIVINE FEMININE=== ===

Explore and Interpret the Guidance and Messages of the Divine Feminine

The Young Women of Today

The news today is that young women of today are depressed. There’s more detail about that but I want to talk about the fact that the Divine Feminine has actively begun to emerge and is this future of our world. There is much work to do and they are depressed. Does their future seem overwhelming? Does it seem impossible? Or does it even seem futile? This is not true of a majority of young women but there are enough that it made the news.

There have been many times in our history where women have stepped forward to take the lead and make major changes to raise our status and influence in the world. This teenage population has many strong women that have already opened the path before them. There are very strong teenaged activists stepping forward – both male and female. What do they know intuitively that perhaps we do not? My belief system is that in between lives we choose exactly how we want to live and what we want to accomplish when we come out of the plant.

I’m still working to help expand the influence of women in our world primarily by writing these messages of encouragement to both men and women who are more active than I am. I see our role as continuing to explore the possibilities. I see us as a growing circle of light workers who are finding each other and are being bolstered by the presence of other light workers that we can recognize. It’s one thing to raise your light and your intention and another thing to go out and do the work and make stuff happen. I’m at the raise-my-intention to insert energy into the world stage of participation.

There’s a lot to overcome. And I’m sure we have more battles to fight and win. But we will win and we will continue to change the world and bring in more of the qualities of the Divine Feminine.

Where are you on this path? What is your role? And are you stepping into it?

===REFLECTIONS OF A DEEPER SONG PODCAST===

Expanding Awareness

What Makes A Friend A Friend?

Listen to my
Reflections of a Deeper Song Podcast on
Apple / Spotify / Googleand the
Deeper Song Website

===CARA’S CORNER===

Recognize Where You Are Now. Do Not Backtrack.

I was truly excited over the idea for about 48 hours. I was going to turn all my books into audiobooks. Then I found out how complex it is to create an audiobook. It’s not like a podcast that you can edit and post yourself. But I sure had fun for about 24 hours dreaming this possibility.

It’s good to dream. It’s good to dream big. Your imagination is good for you and you need to get carried away with an idea periodically in order to make sure you still can.

But here was the catch – don’t go backward. However much I might like to have some of my books in audio format, that is not where I need to spend my time and energy. I am to continue to move forward and explore new pathways and leave markers for others to follow. My job is to keep exploring and keep sharing what I discover and figure out in the present moment of my evolution. It was a huge realization for me.

How do you choose to use your time – going back over the past or moving steadily towards the future?

I know that I’ve shared this before but when I became a Reiki Master teacher in the 80s, they asked each of us what we wanted to do with the Reiki. The person who spoke before me said “I’m going to help all the poor people by giving them Reiki.” And I knew immediately with my choice was. I said “I’m going to help all the people who are already flying high to fly higher.” And that has been my role for 40 years. I had to keep going and flying higher and inviting others to join me.

Keep your eye on your goal. The overarching core purpose of your life. I am a way-shower and I have to keep exploring.

===SING A DEEPER SONG ===

Don’t Lose Sight Of Your Calling

The idea was so intriguing it pulled me totally off track. I even wandered down the wrong road a bit.

The idea was so intriguing it pulled me totally off track. I even wandered down the wrong road a bit. Until I realized I was going backward not forward.

The idea was so intriguing it pulled me totally off track. I even wandered down the wrong road a bit. Until I realized I was going backward not forward. But I heard the call in time. I took a shortcut back to the main road and started moving forward again.

– Cara Lumen, February 2023

We create our future with every thought we think, every action we take. Move forward mindfully as you sing your Deeper Song.

Namaste,

Cara

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Do You Feel The Pull Of The Unknown?

February 12, 2023 By Cara Lumen

Do You Feel The Pull Of The Unknown?

Living Our Deeper Song

Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!

As children we had big daydreams. There were no limitations because we didn’t know what challenges we would face.

As we grew to adulthood our dreams and expectations became a little more grounded in reality and unfortunately, a lot less fanciful.

I’m sitting here at 90 and I still get to make stuff up. I’m not going to ignore reality but I am going to use my imagination to envision the cleansing of the world in a gentle way and the emergence of strong, loving, all-encompassing energy in which our world and we thrive. Pay attention to the emerging opportunities and trends and insights and try to expand and explore them as they open. Pursue those wild dreams and the opportunities they present. Allow yourself to feel the pull of the unknown and follow its call.

DEEPER SONG AFFIRMATION

I take time to explore the unknown and bring new opportunities into my life.

DEEPER SONG PROCESS

Identify an area you would like to explore for inspiration and motivation like music, writing, poetry, or friends.
Learn more about that aspect of life and the potential it holds for your personal exploration and expansion.
Add elements of that newly explored path to your life and spiritual practice.

===INNER WORK===

Deepen Your Inner Awareness

Connect With What Has Gone Before You

I listened to quite a number of talks on the Ancestral Summit on The Shift Network and what drew me the most were ways to deepen my relationship with nature, with the Planet Earth as our evolving home and as a resident of the Cosmos we still know so little about.

The idea that ancient rivers and mountains and oceans were there long before the inhabitants, however small, appeals to me. I like learning that way before my lifetime, people from Asia and Siberia walked across the land bridge to Alaska and became the American Indians. I don’t have much affinity for the time of the dinosaurs.

How do I get my messages and lessons from nature? How do I transform and adapt the offerings of nature? How do I deepen my connection with nature? How do I learn its lessons of patience and gradual change and adaptation? How do I hear our combined heartbeat?

I no longer travel so I cannot go to sacred landscapes. I live with my view of an enclosed garden and a Midwestern sunrise. And of course, the great shape-shifting mid-western clouds.

I have two house plants to honor nature and three small pinecones I used to celebrate the Winter Solstice and a fluffy dried flower like a hair bow on my plant stand. And I have fifty or so crystals I speak with every day. Those are the tools I have in my space to create and deepen my connection to nature. I use them all to create a deeper connection and honoring of nature.

Work with what you have. Grow where you are planted.

I could create a nature ceremony with a container in which I place a little twig, a leaf, a rock and a shell. I could make up a song to the elements. I actually do sing to the directions each morning. When the weather changes, I will go outside and sit in the sun and meditate in the garden by the Koi pond. I have a lot of crystals but I do not have a rock that I picked up on a nature walk. I do have a twig and some dried leaves that are symbols of nature. How do I sit in a small space and deepen my connection with nature?

I open my heart and use my imagination. I will travel in my imagination deep into the core of Gaia while it is still molten and changing to feel the power of the earth continuing to create herself.

I can spend time with the moon even when I can’t see it from my window. I can raise my sights and expectations to the ongoing movement of the planets. And I can wonder about their interactive influences as they change positions in the sky and affect the energy of our planet.

I might watch my house plants for new leaves as a sign of Nature’s ongoing and continuous change. I just want a way to contemplate nature in my spiritual practice, to be aware of our continuous change and evolution, and experience myself as part of that ongoing change.

I’m going to begin to reach over and touch the leaves of my two live plants every day – perhaps create some sort of a blessing or honoring.

I have had yards where I would go barefoot in the grass but that was a long time ago. How are you going to deepen your experience of our planet earth?

Expand The Elements Of Your Spiritual Practice

A spiritual practice should be fluid. It can be fluid in timing. It can be fluid in the elements it contains. And it can be fluid in its location. But a spiritual practice needs to be consistent in your life.

There can be elements of contemplation which include meditation and journaling. There can be elements of connection which could be in the form of ceremony. I use my drums and native flutes each day to sing to the directions and the rising sun. I also create a ceremonial connection with my crystals each day.

Journaling is an important part of a spiritual practice because writing things down allows you to look beneath the obvious into deeper truths. I often journal at night for reflective contemplation of the lessons and experiences of my day. A shamanic journey can be part of your spiritual practice.

The location of your meditative practice can change. Being outside adds a whole depth of sounds and experiences. Nature will add a depth of awareness to your meditative practice.

I can’t use candles where I live but I certainly could have a small altar cloth upon which I arrange various objects that have meaning to me that become a signal that I have begun my ceremony. The mere act of setting up an environment for a meditation deepens your receptiveness.

I live in a small space but I have an altar space made in the shelves of a fairly narrow bookcase. I turn my desk chair toward the window, pick up my drum and play and sing to the elements and the directions. Then I turn and speak with and touch each of the crystals on my altar. I intuitively listen to their messages and offer gratitude for various aspects of my life. I use my Indian rattle to send a blessing to my day and my health, and my life expression. I also play my Kalimba thumb piano to bless my day.

What elements and patterns will you weave into your spiritual practice? Keep it fluid. You might make changes at the Solstice or Equinox or new or full moon or simply in the moment. Keep your spiritual practice fluid and relevant.

I’m going to add a daily reading to my practice. The Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell’s translation and The Essential Rumi, Colman Barks translation are two I will begin with. I also like Deng, Ming-Dao’s work. I may choose to write something based on what I read. That helps me understand and apply the concept. Journaling helps me find ways to bring those concepts into my daily life.

I can make up my own poems as part of my spiritual practice. I could draw as part of my spiritual practice. Bear in mind I’m a pencil and stick figure artist but that would not prevent me from recording what I see in my imagination.

Experiment with different elements for your spiritual practice in different locations and at different times of day. But do develop a regular spiritual practice.

===SELF-HEALING===

Take Responsibility for Healing Yourself

Acknowledge The Small Wins

It was a small step and a huge win. Physical therapy gave me permission to sit in my desk chair again and walk around my space using my walker. I was mobile again. It had been nearly three weeks since my hip replacement surgery. I was as excited as if I have won the lottery. I had a new level of work to do.

Small wins could be the source of great encouragement. Take those wins and expand on them. Let them take you to a next level. I’m doing core strengthening exercises while sitting in my chair and I can do them all standing up too. I do leg strengthening movements while sitting in my chair and I am now encouraged to step onto the hall and stand, to hang onto the railing and do more standing exercises. It gives me a great sense of freedom to have this self-responsibility back again.

I lost my strength because of surgery. But I had spent the last year and a half losing my strength because I wasn’t doing the work. Part of that was depression but it was still my responsibility.

Whatever physical steps you choose to take to care for yourself, celebrate them. Be grateful for them. Do them with joy and enthusiasm and pleasure so you don’t lose them.

===OUTER WORK===

Explore New Potential and Possibilities

How Have Your Objectives Changed?

When we are observant, we will see that our objectives change with some frequency. I may set out to cross a field and stop as I find a lovely rock to pick up and examine and consider. I may see a butterfly that catches my attention. It might rain on me and I need to seek shelter. Life is not one straight uninterrupted path, it is a series of adjustments and detours and course corrections. Be flexible as you move through life and let your goals change as you gain more insight and information.

I don’t question my goals every day, but I do see if what I have chosen to do that day still resonates with my thinking and my needs and adjust accordingly. Be flexible as you take your journey and explore some side roads. Life is one big adventure.

Continuous Learning

I love to learn and because of my diminishing eyesight I am exploring new venues for learning. I found one podcast I like to listen to. I can still manage to read e-books. I have not tried audiobooks yet but someone recently said they found audiobooks were read too slowly. I’m a very fast reader. I’m going to explore videos, particularly when it comes to learning how to do certain things.

In ancient times there was always a storyteller who, through his or her story time, taught moral values and insights for living. I’ve never tried to craft a teaching story but I think everything I write is about what I have learned.

Is there something you wanted to learn along the line but kept putting off that it is time to take action on? Exploring is interesting. It helps you find areas of interest that you were not familiar with and invites you to take time to explore them more deeply. See if you can push yourself a little in some aspect of your learning to open a few doors and wander down a few unexplored paths.

Monitor Your Influence

We influence others by our very presence. We influence others by our attitude. We influence others by our choices. We infuse others by the way we look at the world. Be aware that every word you speak and every choice you make is how you want to be present in the world. Be aware of the impact of your mere presence and make sure it is how you want to show up in the world.

Do You Have A Strong Sense of Purpose?

In this new phase of my life, I am working to identify and define my new sense of purpose.

I had a Care Evaluation meeting recently and was able to share with some of the staff how vital it is been for me to be in contact with this caring loving staff and how it has pulled me out of the depression I was not even aware I was in. It turns out the staff is really glad to have me in their lives too. That’s good.

My purpose is not about shoring us up but it may become that in the course of interactions in which I encourage someone or help them clarify their role. My purpose for this next portion of my life is still unfolding. What I know to do is to be observant and aware that my new role is gradually unfolding and making itself known.

If you don’t have a strong sense of purpose for this phase of your life, spend some time meditating about it. Maybe do some journaling around your thoughts. Sometimes writing down one idea helps us get to the idea right underneath it. It’s like gradually peeling back layers.

I do have one strong overarching purpose – to be in service as an explorer and interpreter of metaphysical ideas. That seems to be a steady role that I play in my life. So perhaps my role is to go exploring and share what I learn. I like that. Do you have a strong sense of purpose? What is it?

===DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE===

Self-Healing Spiritual Practice and Deepening Awareness of Our Cosmic Oneness

Release What Is Not Needed Through Ceremony

One of the ways we move forward is to release ideas and concepts and beliefs that we no longer need or want or hold.

I do not have this well established in my life but one of the ways to free yourself is to create a ceremony to helps you release what is holding you in place, what is preventing you from moving forward.

What you really can change is what you believe along with attitudes and habits and expectation. The first step is to identify what is holding you back and what you would benefit from releasing.

As my body continues to heal from my hip replacement surgery, I get to raise my expectations for myself and my body. So, one of the things I could do is create a ceremony to release all of the beliefs based on past experience that no longer serve me.

How I release it is up to me and my imagination. I could write it on a piece of paper and tear it up in little pieces. I could write it on a piece of paper and burn it in a fire. There is dissolvable paper you can simply make disappear. The idea of prayer flags has emerged in my consciousness recently so I could create a prayer flag out of a scarf or a piece of fabric and put it out in my garden to let it release concepts that no longer serve me or send blessings to things that I want to help change.

Experiment with the form you use for releasing what no longer serves you and perhaps create regular releasing ceremonies. You may choose times that are aligned with the new moon or a full moon or beginning of the month or any other method of marking a period of time to consciously clear out and release beliefs and attitudes and expectations that no longer serve you.

Add a regular releasing ceremony to your spiritual practice and continue to clear the path before you.

===HOW TO BE A STRONG CONTRIBUTING MEMBER OF THE CIRCLE OF LIGHT BEARERS===

Expand Your Role in the Rapidly Evolving Universe

Give Your All Whatever You Do

“I’m agency, I don’t know where it is and the nurse is agency too,” said the person I had asked for a snack in the middle of the night. An hour or so later, the Agency nurse came in and when I asked her for a snack she said, “I’ll find it,” and she did. A few hours later I asked the first person to help me get dressed for the day and she said, “I’m supposed to leave in a few minutes.”

Which one of these two women do you think will have the most positive experience of their life and work?

We reap what we sow. When we move through life with a willingness to participate in and learn and grow, we have a very positive experience.

As we choose to continue to do work that is not satisfying or rewarding, it will poison everything else that we do.

This is not just about having a right job. This is about how you approach whatever you do. When you approach your work in the world as meaningful, helpful to others, and do your best work, it will bring you a very satisfying experience.

If you don’t like your work, figure out what you do like to do and do that.

How do you view the work you’ve chosen to do? Do you look forward to participating in your work life every day? Do you enjoy the people that you work with? Do you continue to learn and grow and expand your own skills through that job?

I’m not even going to say bloom where you are planted. I’m going to say if you are not blooming where you are now, get up and go plant yourself in another field so you can express yourself by calling more deeply on your skills and insights.

If you need to get more training, get it. If you need to change careers, do that. At any point in your life be sure how you do spend the majority of time off of work is satisfying and rewarding and meaningful. Do you need to make a change?

===BROADEN YOUR HORIZON – EXPAND YOUR VIEW===

Raise Your Sights and Your Expectations

Redefine Your Purpose

I want to be more proactive in the evolution of our planet at this point in time. I want to help raise awareness of our individual potential roles and help the planet heal herself and evolve into a powerful home for light workers. The first thing I’m going to do is visualize.

What would it look like if everyone on the planet recognized themselves as a conscious light worker – moving around the planet with awareness and conscious care, doing no harm, always preserving and asking others to do the same? A colony of light workers spreading its influence teaching others to honor and care for Mother Earth.

We know from experience that particular awareness is not everywhere. But those of us who choose to do this work do it with purposeful devotion and others are attracted to follow. As we deepen our relationship, we deepen our sense of wholeness and oneness, others see our light and are drawn to it. It changes their awareness. They modify their choices.

Just as you want your own home to be nurturing, you want to help create nurturing in all corners of your being. That means that we must raise our individual consciousness and do no harm to earth. No harm to animals and humans and plants.

This is an individual quest – an individual raising of our consciousness. As consciousness we share ideas with others. Of course, we want to take action to stop harm from being done.

Switch your intention and begin focusing on preserving our planet.

Begin by adding more ceremony of gratitude to Mother Earth. By monitoring your own footprint on the planet to be sure you are doing no harm. Share that awareness with others. So that Gaia is given time and space and care to heal herself. Do more ceremony and ask how you can help. Then do that.

===OUR EVOLVING FUTURE===

Support and Encouragement for our Unfolding Role in the Future

Keep Your Eyes On The Light

Those of us who are aware that we are here called to raise our vibration must keep our eyes on the light. We must make certain that our lives reflect what we want to see in the world. We must continue to explore and experiment to find more effective ways to keep ourselves in the space of higher vibration, to live our lives as an example of that so others see that possibility within themselves.

Look back over your experiences to see what new awareness has opened up for you, what new friends inspire and motivate you and how the choices you make are reflected in to the world.

Keep your eyes on the light and keep moving toward it.

=== DEEPER SONG PHILOSOPHIES ===

Consider This

This quote was in the homework for my Tai Chi class with Deng, Ming-Dao. I really like the images. It offers a new way to view life.

“The supreme ultimate is born from the limitless that is the mother of the ten thousand things. They divide in movement.

They combine in stillness.

They never go to excess:

they follow, bend, engage, and extend.”

—Excerpt from “Shanxi Wang Zongyue’s Taijiquan Treatise,” Wang Zongyue (c. fifteenth century?

===REFLECTIONS OF A DEEPER SONG PODCAST===

Expanding Awareness

The Gaia Gateway and Your Soul Star

Listen to my
Reflections of a Deeper Song Podcast on
Apple / Spotify / Googleand the
Deeper Song Website

==== DEEPER SONG EXPLORATION ===

Here’s an app to identify crystals: Rock identifier

That same company also makes an app called Plant Identifier.

===REFLECTIONS===

Where Are Your Roots?

Change your opinions, keep your principles;

Change your leaves, keep intact your roots.

– Victor Hugo

Where have you planted your roots? And how are they supporting you?

As we grow, we extend our roots into new territories, some of which are more nurturing than others. The roots that are the most nurturing are aligned with the direction we want to grow. They help our growth be stronger and faster and more supportive of us in our lives.

Sometimes we put out an explorer root into a new topic or a new idea only to find that it is not for us. It does not nourish us. It does not take us where we choose to go. That is when we return and put out other feeder roots and go exploring.

Cultivate only the roots that nurture you.

===CARA’S CORNER===

Take Love Where You Find It

I’m a 90-year-old who just acquired a Care Bear in the Bingo Swap Shop at my long-term care facility. This sweet-faced orange stuffed animal brought tears to my eyes as hugged it. I guess we’re never too old for a little love whatever the source.

I am surrounded by kindness so why do I feel emotion from looking at and holding an orange stuffed bear with a compassionate smile on her face?

We have to give love to ourselves. How do you do that? It feels like this bear is here for me. Supporting me. Cheering for me. Offering me love. She is reflecting my self-love back to me. I think I should begin to have conversations with her. Discussions with her. Get her feedback. It’s like having a really close friend in my corner cheering me on. I’m a very strong woman but today I needed cheering up by a stuffed animal. Be open to support where and when it finds you.

===SING A DEEPER SONG ===

Feeling Love

I have to learn to feel loved. What is the barrier and how do I dissolve it?

I have to learn to feel loved. What is the barrier and how do I dissolve it? Do I feel unworthy? Or do I simply not take time for self-love?

I have to learn to feel loved. What is the barrier and how do I dissolve it? Do I feel unworthy? Or do I simply not take time for self-love? I am worthy of love. I am deserving of love. I will do a better job of loving myself.

– Cara Lumen, February 2023

We create our future with every thought we think, every action we take. Move forward mindfully as you sing your Deeper Song.

Namaste,

Cara

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